That day when Skynet takes control and decides humans are inconsequential is getting ever closer, but when it happens we may not understand what the robots are talking about. That’s if research being carried out at the University of Queensland continues to see success.

Ruth Schulz, researcher in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering has been attempting to get robots talking and learning from one another. However, instead of supplying them with a primitive language, much like a programming language or basic set of keywords with predetermined meaning, she has instead left them to come up with their own words for the situations they find themselves in. Over time, that will develop into a language the robots understand, but to a human onlooker makes absolutely no sense.

The robots are called Lingodroids, and they are given the capability to create a communication link with other Lingodroids in the area. The single task they have to complete is to build a map of the world they are capable of travelling around on their three wheels. In order to do that they have a camera, range finder and sonar, and audio capabilities for capturing (microphone) and sharing (speaker) information.

Whenever a Lingodroid encounters some new area they map it using SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping) which involves making it memorable using a grid, landmark, and topological combination that remains unique.

Once SLAM has been used to log an area the robot decides on a word to represent it made up from a list of sylabbles it has in memory. That word is then passed along to the other robots. All the robots then use that word to represent a specific place with reinforcement happening through game playing where one robot says a known word and the others navigate to it. That word is linked to the unique SLAM area marker formed by the Lingodroid such as the examples given below:

It’s very basic stuff in terms of communication, but it soon develops into a map with keywords the robots can say and the others can decide to travel to, or at least add to their own internal maps. It even extends to areas that cannot be accessed, and the robots can still give those areas a name.

The next stage is to increase the spatial intelligence of the robots by allowing them to learn and give directions to specific places. If that works we’ll have robots acting like a GPS, but in a language we don’t understand.